Guest Post: Children's Books

All children have the capacity to love reading – it just hits them at different times. Aged 8, it’s struck my daughter and we are exploring my childhood favourites.

It’s controversial but I loved Enid Blyton. There’s a reason kids like reading formulaic fiction, its so soothing. What I don’t love are the cleaned up versions from the 90s, where the ginger beer is swapped for Coke, and the language is modernised. They should be treated as the historical fiction that they are, not apologised for. Although I’ve kept a few of my originals, I’ve been delighted to find the old editions on Amazon for about £2 a copy.

Next I am introducing her to Susan Cooper’s excellent (and under-rated) series – The Dark is Rising (epic but surprisingly down-to-earth adventures), Willard Price’s Adventure series (brothers searching the world for rare species to bring to their father’s eco-sound zoo) and Noel Streatfeild (talented children dancing, ice-skating, acting, and struggling to keep family finances afloat).

And for her ninth birthday, I’m getting her a special edition of the books she’s desperate to read – Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy – as she’s named after his feisty (and non-reading!) heroine – Lyra.